Introduction
The Criminal Justice Subject Guide is intended to provide an introduction to criminal justice research resources. If you need in-depth assistance or if you have questions about any of the resources or services mentioned in the guide please contact the Criminal Justice Liaison Librarian.
Other guides that may be of interest to those studying Criminal Justice include:
Current Events
Government Publications
Psychology
Sociology
Statistics
Selected Reference Books
Research Guides
Criminal Justice Information: How to Find It, How to Use It
Ref HV 7419.5 .C75
The Criminal Justice Student Writer's Manual
Ref HV 9950 .C74323
National Criminal Justice Thesaurus
Ready Ref Z 695.1 .C84 U54 (print version)
Dictionaries & Encyclopedias
The American Dictionary of Criminal Justice: Key Terms and Major Court Cases
Ref HV 7411 .C53
Black's Law Dictionary
Ref KF 156 .B53
Encyclopedia of the American Constitution
Ref KF 4548 .E53
Encyclopedia of American Prisons
Ref HV 9471 .E425
Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice
Ref HV 6017 .E52 (print version)
Encyclopedia of Criminological Theory
From Gale Virtual Reference Library
Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior
Ref HV 6017 .E53 v. 1–4
Encyclopedia of Forensic Science
Ref HV 8073 .B425
Encyclopedia of Forensic Sciences
Ref HV 8073 .E517 v. 1–3
Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity
Ref HV6322.7 .E532
The Encyclopedia of International Organized Crime
Ref HV 6441 .D48
Encyclopedia of Juvenile Justice
Ref HV 9104 .E58
Encyclopedia of Law Enforcement
Ref HV 7921 .E53 v. 1–3
Encyclopedia of Measurement & Statistics
Ref HA29 .S2363
Encyclopedia of Murder & Violent Crime
Ref HV 6515 .E5323
Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law
From Gale Virtual Reference Library
Encyclopedia of White-Collar & Corporate Crime
Ref HV 6768 .E63 v. 1–2
Encyclopedia of World Crime: Criminal Justice, Criminology, and Law Enforcement
Ref HV 6017 .E54
Prisons and Prison Systems: A Global Encyclopedia
Ref HV8665 .R67
21st Century Criminology: A Reference Handbook
West's Encyclopedia of American Law
Ref KF 154 .W47 v. 1–12 and supplements
Law & Legal Materials
American Jurisprudence
Ref KF 154 .A42
Black's Law Dictionary
Ref KF 156 .B53
McCormick on Evidence
Ref KF8935 .M29
New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated
Ref KFN 1231 .N4
United States Code
Ref KF 62 .A2
West's Encyclopedia of American Law
Ref KF 154 .W47 v. 1–12 and supplements
Statistics
Crime State Rankings
Ref HV 6787 .C77
European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics
Ref HV 9960.E85 E89 (print version)
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
Ref HV 7425 .N37 (print version)
Uniform Crime Reports for the United States
(Crime in the United States)
Ref HV 6787 .A3 (print version)
Other Reference Materials
Comparative and International Criminal Justice Systems: Policing, Judiciary, and Corrections
Ref HV 7419 .C65
CQ Researcher
Crime and the Justice System in America
Ref HV 6789 .C6884
Famous American Crimes and Trials
Ref HV 9950 .F36 v. 1–5
Guns in American Society
Ref HV 7436 .G8783 v. 1–2
The Handbook of Crime & Punishment
Ref HV 6789 .H25
Juvenile Justice Systems: International Perspectives
Ref HV 9069 .J84
Juvenile Justice Systems: An International Comparison of Problems and Solutions
Ref HV 9069 .J796
Prisons
Ref HV9471 .F465
Find Journal Articles
Search the following databases to locate citations and/or full text of journal articles. In some cases, the database will provide links to the full text of articles. If you see a WebBridge button next to an article of interest, click it to determine whether the journal is available in the Geisel Library or in full text via another electronic database. WebBridge will also help you request articles through Interlibrary Loan if they aren't available through our library. If there is no WebBridge button, search for the journal's availability using the Journal Finder. Journals listed as being in "Geisel Library Paper Holdings" are shelved alphabetically by journal title on the Lower Level of the library.
Core Resources
Criminal Justice Abstracts
Provides abstracts of journals, books, and federal and state government reports in criminal justice and related disciplines. (1968–present)
National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) Abstracts Database
"Contains summaries of more than 150,000 criminal justice publications, including Federal, State, and local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, and unpublished research."
Additional Subject Resources
CINAHL (Nursing)
This will help the researcher to locate health care and nursing articles pertaining to the criminal justice system.
Criminal Justice Periodicals Index
This resource contains abstracts to a healthy mix of scholarly and trade journal articles related to criminal justice research.
ERIC
This database contains much information concerning juvenile justice subjects.
PsycINFO
This database from the American Psychological Association supplies indexing and abstracts from 1887 to the present for journals in over 25 languages plus English-language books and book chapters from 1987. Use this index to locate articles on crime, victimization, forensic psychology, antisocial behavior, etc. User Guide
Restorative Justice Database
"Created and maintained by the Centre of Criminology Library, this database includes citations to academic and practitioner literature from 1970 to the present. It is updated and maintained on a regular basis and presently includes more than 1,400 records." The database can be searched or browsed using broad subject areas such as alternative dispute resolution, community policing, offender outcomes, and teen courts.
SciFinder Scholar (Chemistry)
There are many forensic-related articles in this chemistry database.
SocINDEX
Indexes journals, books, and conference papers in sociology and related fields, including information on social problems, crime, law enforcement, delinquency, corrections, and more.
LexisNexis Academic — Legal
Find legal news, law reviews, case law, and codes and regulations.
Westlaw Campus
Westlaw Campus provides access to the complete laws and statutes of the federal government and all 50 states, all federal regulations published in the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations, and current and archived articles from hundreds of law reviews and journals. Westlaw Campus also includes the major law reference works American Jurisprudence and American Law Reports, which offer authoritative, encyclopedic discussions of legal issues.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
A search of 'Criminal Justice' yields almost 2000 results in this database.
Supplemental Resources
Academic Search Premier
A broad index providing abstracts and some full-text for a range of academic areas, including criminal justice.
CQ Researcher
This database offers current, in-depth reports on issues such as Youth Violence, Wrongful Convictions, Serial Killers, and Gun Rights, from a non-partisan perspective. Each report includes background information, tables and charts, pro/con discussion, and suggestions for further reading. (1991–present) User Guide (PDF/996KB)
NCJRS Virtual Library
"This searches NCJRS's Justice Information Center web site and the web sites of the agencies of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (including National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and the Office for Victims of Crime) and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy." Provides links to more than 1,200 full-text publications.
USA.gov
Over 50 million pages of federal and state can be searched using this "official U.S. gateway to all government information." After finding citations in other indexes listed on this guide, search here to locate the full-text of government reports.
Find Books
Search the library catalog to locate books in Geisel Library. Search by keyword if you are unsure of the title you are looking for. Criminal justice related books are located on the Upper Level of the library in the HV (Criminology) and K (Law) areas.
Search WorldCat to search the collections of libraries worldwide. Find a book in this database, and, if not owned by SAC, you can request it from Interlibrary Loan with one click. Your book(s) will be available for pickup in the library within 7–14 days. Ask for help in using this database at the reference desk, in person, or online at Ask a Librarian.
Ebrary is an online library containing thousands of e-books spanning across all scholarly disciplines. Books can either be opened in QuickView for instant viewing or in the ebrary Reader (a downloadable plug-in), which provides enhanced functionality such as the ability to copy/paste, highlight, or take notes in a particular book.
Selected Websites
Searching the World Wide Web can yield a vast amount of information, but in terms of quality and reliability, your results may be uneven at best. The ease and speed with which individuals can publish information on the web, regardless of accuracy or quality, makes it imperative that when doing research on the web you know how to evaluate the information you find. To learn more, see our guide on Evaluating Websites.
Gateways
Criminal Justice Links
Cecil Greek / Florida State University
This site is widely considered to be the best directory of criminal justice links, arranged by topics such as crime prevention, juvenile delinquency, prisons, the death penalty, pornography, and due process. Includes links to federal criminal justice agencies.
Criminal Justice Resources
Annotated subject guide to a variety of CJ topics, including background information and library reference materials. Subjects include bioterrorism, cybercrime, forensics, and terrorism groups.
Cybrary: the World's Criminal Justice Directory
Created by Dr. Frank Schmalleger, this directory provides links for numerous subjects, such as courts around the world, death penalty, juvenile justice, prisons, and terrorism. There is a search feature to search the links on the site.
Google Scholar
In November 2004 Google introduced Google Scholar, a search engine to locate scholarly literature. Materials found in Google Scholar include "peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations" (About Google Scholar, 2006). Some, but not all, of the content in Google Scholar is available in full text. Google Scholar is a good starting point for research, but it is not considered comprehensive for scholarly content. For the most thorough search of a topic, consult subject-specific indexes (CJ Abstracts, PsycINFO, SocINDEX, etc.).
United Nations Crime and Justice Information Network (UNCJIN)
Part of the larger UN site of the Office on Drugs & Crime, all of the links are contained in an 84 page pdf document, which is best navigated using the "Bookmark" feature. Topics include UN Institutes relating to crime prevention, terrorism prevention, and the Global Programme against Transnational Organized Crime.
Statistics & Data
Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
United States Department of Justice
BJS collects, analyzes, publishes, and disseminates information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice systems at all levels of government. Among the many informative documents available here are a description of the Nation's two crime measures (the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)) and a section devoted to Crime and Victims Statistics. There are also links to Data for Analysis for a more in-depth look at the numbers.
FedStats: Crime Statistics
Quick links to A–Z list of statistics as well as federal agency statistics, including the Drug Enforcement Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Justice Research and Statistics Association
A searchable site which acts as "a clearinghouse of current information on state criminal justice research, programs, and publications."
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
Use this archive to obtain computerized crime and justice data from federal, state, and independent research. Click on the Access Data link to search for data by topic. The Related Sites section provides links for International web sites and Crime Mapping Resources. "Part of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the NACJD is supported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in the U.S. Department of Justice."
National Crime Victimization Survey
Bureau of Justice Statistics
The "NCVS is the Nation's primary source of information on criminal victimization. Each year, data are obtained from a nationally representative sample of roughly 50,000 households comprising nearly 100,000 persons on the frequency, characteristics and consequences of criminal victimization in the United States."
Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
United States Department of Justice
"Brings together data from more than 100 sources about all aspects of criminal justice in the United States ... displayed in over 600 tables." Sections include characteristics of the criminal justice systems, public attitudes toward crime and criminal justice-related topics, nature and distribution of known offenses, characteristics and distribution of persons arrested, judicial processing of defendants, and persons under correctional supervision. Tables and sections are in Adobe Acrobat format, and tables are also available as spreadsheets. Also available in the Geisel Library reference department: HV 7245 .N37
Statistics Publications
National Criminal Justice Reference Service
Provides links to many recently published statistical reports; the documents are also presented in subject groupings. Links to additional sources of statistics, such as associations and government sites, are listed alphabetically.
Uniform Crime Reports
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Uniform Crime Reports, also known as Crime in the United States, provide a nationwide view of crime based on the submission of statistics by law enforcement agencies throughout the country. "The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program's Crime Index is composed of selected offenses used to gauge fluctuations in the volume and rate of crime reported to law enforcement. These selected offenses include the violent crimes of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, and the property crimes of burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft." Also available in the Geisel Library reference department: HV 6787 .A3
International Criminal Justice
Country Studies
Library of Congress
These studies on individual countries contain background information as well as information on criminal justice and court systems. From the main page, choose "Browse" and then select from the alphabetical list of countries. Information can be found under "Government and Politics" and "National Security". A search feature also allows users to search individual countries or all countries for specific areas such as juvenile justice.
Please note: Because the original intent of the Series' sponsor (U.S. Department of Army) was to focus primarily on lesser known areas of the world or regions in which U.S. forces might be deployed, the series is not all-inclusive. Notable omissions include Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and other Western nations, as well as a number of African nations.
European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics — 2003
Information on crime and criminal justice data from 40 countries covering 1995–2000.
International Justice Statistics
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics
National Criminal Justice Profiles
From the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, each profile "contains information on the criminal justice systems of various countries in Europe and North America." Most are available in pdf format for download.
The World Criminal Justice Library Network (WCJLN)
Both the "Criminal Justice Links Annotated" section and the "Statistical Resources" section are organized by country, and lead to such links as departments of justice, court systems, law enforcement, crime surveys, and prison statistics.
The World Factbook of Criminal Justice Systems
"Developed under a BJS grant, [this site] provides narrative descriptions of the criminal justice systems of countries around the world. These 42 country descriptions are written to a common template so that comparisons of similar functions in different countries can be easily made. They were completed in mid-1993, although the most recent data available for inclusion were sometimes for a year or two earlier." Select the ASCII file for a country and then use the browser's "Find" feature to locate a more specific topic, such as prisons.
Law & Legislation
FindLaw
The Legal Information Institute at Cornell University
LexisNexis Academic — Legal
Find legal news, law reviews, case law, and codes and regulations.
Oyez: U.S. Supreme Court Multimedia
Government Agencies
Federal
- Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms & Explosives
- Drug Enforcement Administration
- Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Federal Bureau of Prisons
- Department of Homeland Security
- INTERPOL — U.S. National Central Bureau
- National Institute of Corrections
- National Institute of Justice
- Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Programs
- U.S. Department of Justice
- U.S. Marshals Service
- U.S. Parole Commission
State of New Hampshire
- Department of Corrections
- Emergency Management Office
- State Police
- Safety Services — Safety Department
Non-Governmental Organizations
ABA Juvenile Justice Center
American Bar Association
The ABA Juvenile Justice Center monitors changes emerging in juvenile justice systems across the nation. "The Center's current activities emphasize the right to effective assistance of counsel and the representation of delinquent youth, issues surrounding juveniles tried as adults, and conditions of confinement." Provides information on girls in the juvenile justice system, juvenile death penalty cases, and links to other topics in juvenile justice.
American Civil Liberties Union
This site has special sections on criminal justice, death penalty, and prisons which provide topical information and links. The Publications section provides full text reports in PDF format.
Amnesty International
"Working to protect human rights worldwide" — Follow the "Library" link to find an archive of reports, news releases and urgent actions published from 1996 to the present. The "Resources & Links" section provides links to AI chapters worldwide and to other organizations involved in human rights issues.
The Innocence Network
The Innocence Network is an affiliation of organizations dedicated to providing pro bono legal and investigative services to individuals seeking to prove innocence of crimes for which they have been convicted, and working to redress the causes of wrongful convictions. Good place to locate state and regional organizations.
The Innocence Project
The Innocence Project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
The International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy
"Established in 1991 the Centre is an independent, nonprofit institute formally affiliated with the United Nations. The Centre's objectives are to contribute to international criminal justice policy development through analysis, research and consultation, and to provide technical assistance to implement international policy and standards."
Rand Corporation
"RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis." Areas of expertise include civil and criminal justice and terrorism.
Vera Institute of Justice
Nonprofit institute conducting research on criminal justice, adolescent violence, and social welfare. Many of their reports, especially those published after 1996, are available in PDF format.
Citing Sources
See the library's Citing Sources guide for resources on how to properly cite research materials. Always confirm the style required by your instructor.
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